Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West

Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West
Michael Punke

From the #1 international bestselling author of THE REVENANT – the book that inspired the award-winning movie – comes the fascinating story of America’s first battle over the environment.In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, an American buffalo herd once numbering 30 million animals was reduced to twelve. In an era that treated the West as nothing more than a treasure chest of resources to be dug up and shot down, the buffalo was a commodity, hounded by hide hunters seeking to make their fortunes. Supporting them was the US Army, which considered the eradication of the buffalo essential to victory in its ongoing war on Native Americans.Into this maelstrom rode young George Bird Grinnell. A scientist and a journalist, a hunter and a conservationist, Grinnell would lead the battle to save the buffalo and preserve an American icon from extinction.

Copyright (#ulink_8a3502b7-c2b0-5ddd-b0e6-a8bec44c1c52)

Published by The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by The Borough Press 2016

Originally published in 2007 by Collins and Smithsonian Books

Copyright © Michael Punke 2007

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)

Michael Punke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008189341

Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780008189358

Version: 2016-02-18

Dedication (#ulink_0b3ed86b-95be-5613-a6b6-72e07be94b7d)

For Sophie and Bo:

May your children’s children see wild buffalo on the plains.

Epigraph (#ulink_9aa6f06f-683f-5731-ad73-c0c3a2744c3c)

Motionless, with head thrown back,

and in an attitude of attention,

he calmly inspected the vessel floating along below him;

so beautiful an object amid his wild surroundings,

and with his background of brilliant sky,

that no hand was stretched out for the rifle …

There is one spot left,

a single rock about which this tide will break,

and past which it will sweep, leaving it undefiled

by the unsightly traces of civilization.

George Bird Grinnell

CONTENTS

COVER (#u42c5a544-7bd0-59a9-b513-84aad45ac4ae)

TITLE PAGE (#ufd19282a-17e9-5a3e-bd31-80817c7b0f7b)

COPYRIGHT (#u480e254f-f73f-5afe-8000-90bb929f4adf)

DEDICATION (#u4349e8b8-f107-5d24-a2df-2c81f87c3e04)

EPIGRAPH (#u30e7a082-ff61-5124-86dc-ca6e39727b94)

MAPS (#uc95b6225-06e1-50ee-98a8-b3e498692eea)

PROLOGUE: The Stand (#uaa8b83f9-68a8-591e-936f-b88dbd780cf7)

One: “Wild and Wooly” (#u59c6d286-7561-5c89-b3e7-d3a1e0456e40)

Two: “Self-Denial” (#u60abc306-2146-54e0-ab6e-de47ecbd0e57)

Three: “Barbarism Pure and Simple” (#u8ceb6140-b105-58b1-8ad5-a7296abc8cea)

Four: “I Felled a Mighty Bison” (#u9316a85e-ee84-51f0-bd46-f078d90f4080)

Five: “The Guns of Other Hunters” (#uec667749-978a-5db0-bf05-fc1e162dc91e)

Six: “That Will Mean an Indian War” (#litres_trial_promo)

Seven: “Ere Long Exterminated” (#litres_trial_promo)

Eight: “A Weekly Journal” (#litres_trial_promo)